‘Spies of Warsaw’ is a confusing portrait of pre-WWII espionage

Much has been written and filmed about espionage during World War II and the Cold War, but a lot less information is available on spies during the last couple of years before the war began.

“Spies of Warsaw,” a two-part BBC America miniseries based on Alan Furst’s 2009 novel, attempts to do that. Its hero, Col. Jean-Francois Mercier, is a French aristocrat, a World War I hero and a master spy who shuttles from one threatened country to another as Hitler gathers his forces to invade Poland. In quick succession, the action jumps from Paris to Poland and Czechoslovakia to Germany in 1937-39. Subtitles provide the city and year, but it’s still hard to keep the characters and action straight, especially in Part I.

Mercier — played by David Tennant, a former Dr. Who — goes from black-tie events at the French Embassy in Warsaw to back streets and alleys where German spies lurk. Along the way, he assumes a variety of disguises and kills a few German spies and sympathizers.

He also falls in love with the beautiful Anna Skarbok, a Polish woman who grew up in Paris. She has been living with Max, a Russian revolutionary, which adds complications to the plot because Russia, like Germany, is considered a threat to Poland. Max is deported and presumed dead — but is he?

Mercier has a stable of spies who are in constant danger as they play a variety of roles to lure confidences from the enemy. And Mercier is right in the thick of it, including a dangerous mission to Germany to film soldiers obviously preparing for an invasion.

And here’s the rub: Although he’s promoted by the French for his daring, Mercier’s superiors don’t believe him when he says Hitler is going to invade Poland and eventually France — a scene that’s hard to watch because you know that did happen not long afterward. Mercier, frustrated and depressed, takes unpaid leave and goes to his estate in rural France.

After a few months, however, he’s back in the saddle, taking off for Germany on an especially hazardous mission. On the way back, he plans to rescue Anna and her mother from their home in rural Poland.

All of this could make for fine storytelling, but there are a few problems. One is the rather dry, rote telling of what should be exciting events. Tennant shows little emotion as Mercier. That could be attributed to leftover trauma from World War I, but it makes for a rather dull character. Janet Montgomery as Anna is more interesting because you don’t know if she can be trusted until well into the story.

In addition, the action leaps around so much that it’s confusing. I have not read the book on which the miniseries is based, but I have the feeling that a good bit of background information in the novel didn’t make it onto the screen.

Actual events are woven through the story, including the Germans’ invasion of Poland and the evacuation of the Polish gold reserve on a train bound for Paris. The music, haunting and mysterious, helps set the era of the story. There’s a slight Hitchcockian feel to the film, with lots of night shots and dark interiors.

But even with all of that, I didn’t find this miniseries all that absorbing. The characters were mostly superficial, and the frequent location changes were distracting. Perhaps the book is better.